Biography of Psychic Detective Gerard Croiset Part 1

About the Psychic Detective Gerard Croiset, biography and history of the Dutch crime fighter and prognosticator.

PEOPLE WITH STRANGE POWERS

The Psychic Detective

Gerard Croiset has been called "the radar brain," "the Dutchman with the X-ray mind," "the miracle man of Holland," and "the wizard of Utrecht." He has become internationally known as a psychometrist--someone who has the gift of revealing facts about an object or its owner by holding the object in his hand. He may also "see" present happenings in distant places and have the ability to peer into the future.

Croiset was born in Holland in 1909. His Jewish parents were both in the theater, and as a child he suffered years of poverty and discouragement, spending much of his youth in foster homes. From his school days on, he "knew" things which were unknown to others. After a teacher had taken a day off, Croiset told him that he had spent the day in a distant place with a girl who wore a red rose on her dress and whom he would one day marry. The teacher was astonished, for Croiset was perfectly right. He had visited his fiancÈe in another town, and she had worn a red rose on her dress.

As he grew older, he began to develop his remarkable faculty; he foresaw the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands and the Japanese takeover of the Dutch East Indies.

In December, 1945, at age 36, he approached Professor Tenhaeff of the Parapsychological Institute at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, who was the first appointee to the world's only professorship in parapsychology. After months of exhaustive studies, Tenhaeff declared that Croiset was one of the most remarkable subjects he had ever come across. Tenhaeff called him a "paragnost," a word he coined from the Greek para for "beyond" and gnosis for "knowledge."

According to Tenhaeff, at his very best Croiset can describe four basic things after handling an object: (1) the owner of the object--including a vocal impression; (2) the owner's personal circumstances; (3) the owner's contacts--meaning his relatives, friends, and workmates; and (4) the owner's living situation--neighborhood, home, and so forth. In the early days, Croiset's descriptions were so startlingly accurate that it was decided to put them to practical uses. Croiset became the first clairvoyant to be officially employed in police investigations. His talents have assisted the police in tracking down murderers, sex criminals, thieves, and missing persons. He does not have to visit the scene of the crime to receive images, but often works just from photographs, maps, or odd pieces of evidence such as clothes or weapons.